[opendtv] News: Upstart Firefox browser nearing 10-percent market share

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 08:03:24 -0400

Upstart Firefox browser nearing 10-percent market share


July 18, 2005 12:00am
Source: Agence France-Presse English Wire

WASHINGTON, July 15 (AFP) - Upstart Internet browser Firefox has 
boosted its global market share to 8.71 percent in June, putting it 
on the verge of a milestone of 10 percent, a Web-monitoring firm said 
Friday.

NetApplications said the gains for the open-source Firefox, coming 
years after Microsoft and its Internet Explorer won the so-called 
"browser war" against Netscape, signal a new threat to the industry 
leader.

The figures from NetApplications showed Internet Explorer still held 
a commanding 86.56 percent of the browser usage last month but that 
Firefox, a project of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, was gaining 
fast.

"Microsoft continues to lose 0.5 to 1.0 of market share each month, 
which has been steady throughout 2005," noted Dan Shapero, chief 
operating officer at NetApplications.

"With its continued momentum, combined with significant media 
attention, Firefox has steadily increased its user-base each and 
every month. Firefox is starting to tempt the masses with it strong 
word of mouth referrals and is expected to gain significant traction 
once it gains acceptance by large corporations."

NetApplications said that at its current pace, Firefox will soon grab 
a 10 percent market share, "a significant milestone in its bid to 
steal thunder away from Microsoft's de-facto industry standard 
browser, Internet Explorer."

Most other browsers experienced little change during June. Apple's 
Safari held a 1.93 percent market share while Netscape -- now a part 
of Time Warner's America Online division, had 1.55 percent maket 
share and the Opera browser was at 0.59 percent.

The data has been collected from over 40,000 monitored global websites.

Microsoft, by integrating the browser into its Windows operating 
system crushed Netscape Navigator, which had been the dominant 
browser in the late 1990s, effectively ending the browser wars at the 
time.

But some Web users are concerned about the security of Internet 
Explorer and have been using alternatives.

Other surveys indicate varied results in different countries. 
WebsideStory said in May that Firefox usage was at 22.58 percent in 
Germany but only 2.79 percent in Japan.

<< Copyright ©2005 Agence France-Presse >>
 
 
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